


More Than Meets the Eye

by imaginary_iby



Series: Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: BAMF!Danny, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Krav Maga, M/M, Romance, Team Ohana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Danny is kidnapped, taken by a small unit of disgraced SEALs, the team launches a massive man-hunt through the jungle to rescue him.  As they stumble upon one broken body after the next, they soon learn that Danny might just not need saving after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Meets the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the fact that BAMF!Danny in 3.07 was the hottest three seconds of the entire show. (The fact that Scotty actually practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu doesn't help). If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: I have a weakness for Danny being secretive and powerful and more dangerous than he lets on. 
> 
> As you've probably guessed by now, the stories in this series do not follow on chronologically from each other - rather, they're a collection based on the BAMF!Danny theme. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Krav Maga.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga)

_Present._

Adjusting his grip on his H&K, Steve nestled the muzzle into a particularly stubborn tangle of leafy strands. With a determined flick of his wrist, he edged the vines aside, pressing forward and carefully stepping between hollowed mossy logs that lay scattered here and there.

He could sense his team moving alongside him, the back of his mind registering the flitterings of their black body armor as they moved skillfully though the dense greenery. To his right, Chin hunted through the more open areas, shifting from tree to tree and searching for tracks. To his left, Kono, (more easily able to weave her way through the strangling foliage), peered into the low light, searching for anything that might aid their pursuit. 

Further back, a contingent of HPD officers fanned out through the jungle, armed to the teeth and guiding a host of German Shepherds. Their flashlights swung slowly from left to right, right to left; despite the early hour, the canopy above was so thick that they were hunting through shadows. Last but not least, looking down on them all, was Cath. She’d pulled a few strings and had managed to task a satellite over the area – her voice chattered in their ear-pieces as she guided them towards potential points of interest.

Steve was ashamed to admit it, but he couldn’t bring himself to look for anything more complicated than _Danny._ Not a track, not a clue, not a torn scrap of clothing - just _Danny._ All those years of training, of compartmentalization, of ignoring the peripheral to complete the mission… and still only half of his mind was working as it should. 

He kept straining his eyes, hoping to suddenly see a flash of blonde; kept cocking his ears as if out of nowhere Danny’s voice would call out to him. _Honestly, Steven, this jungle is ridiculous, can we please get back to civilization already?_

Silence. For days now, nothing but silence. People talking around him, _to_ him, about him; shouting at him to calm down, pleading with him to sleep. And yet somehow, despite the seeming cacophony, life without Danny was painfully still. 

Overcome by a rush of anger, he unsheathed his knife and carved it cleanly through a stubborn vine that refused to budge. It was only as he was tucking the blade back into its holster that he felt the weight of Chin’s gaze.

Steve lifted his eyes, taking in the sight of his team-mate as he emerged from the shadow of a large gnarly tree. A thoroughly worried expression was painted all over Chin’s normally relaxed face. Steve could only guess as to how Chin had been coping; caught up in his own panic, he’d forgotten just how much Danny had slowly come to mean the world to not only him, but his team. 

To Chin, who was slowly dragging a secretly eager Danny all around the island so that he could sample different local pastries. To Cath, whose younger sister was the same age as Grace, making her uniquely qualified to go to dinner with Danny as often as they could spare, discussing teenage independence, (not to mention guns and baseball). To Kono, who was still hauling Danny out of the house at ungodly hours on the weekend, plying him with drive-through coffee and kidnapping him to the beach. To Max, waiting nervously back at HQ, irritated by his inability to help in the field and therefore twice as determined to pour over every scrap of evidence, Fong at his side. To Kamekona, even, each and every day making sure that everybody was well fed.

Letting his thoughts settle, Steve forced himself to breathe deeply, smiling comfortingly at his friend and presenting a stable front. He’d put everybody through hell these last few days, dealing with Danny’s disappearance with little finesse and even less leadership. Resolute, he squared his shoulders, gathering his focus and beginning to truly assess his surroundings. His team had been propping him up for days now and it was time for him to return the favor. With fresh eyes, he swept his gaze efficiently over every leaf, every twig, every sprig of moss.

Suddenly, erupting from the steady murmurings of HPD officers and the skittering of startled birds, came Chin’s cry. “Here! Guys, over here!”

Steve’s heart froze. He’d always thought that people were being dramatic, given to fits of literary fancy whenever they said that their veins turned to ice. But it was the only way he could describe his reaction to seeing Chin stare down at the ground in horror.

No. No. 

He thundered through the foliage, legs moving on adrenaline alone. Fumbling his way into the clearing where Chin stood, Steve swept his gaze up and along the body that was sprawled in the mud. Boots. Cargo pants. T-Shirt. Tac vest.

…not Danny. 

Steve’s ribs contracted, squeezing, before he rattled in a broken breath. _Not Danny._

Studying the man’s disfigured face, Steve mentally scanned the list of IDs and ‘last known’ photos that the team had carefully cultivated. Henry Bentley, formerly of SEAL team three, currently marked as a person of interest by NCIS. In his mind, Steve drew a line through the man’s name. _Status: deceased._

Henry’s body was battered. Even a cursory evaluation told the story of his demise. A knife – military issue – buried into the underside of his jaw, skewering straight up until the hilt hit his chin.

Steve knew from experience how long that knife was, and just what kind of damage it could do.

Kono came to stand beside him, a nimble hand on the space between his shoulder blades. “Killed by his own weapon. This is a good sign, boss.” She smiled at him, her eyes surprisingly bright considering he’d caught her having a quiet cry to herself earlier in the morning. She’d threatened to murder him in a variety of interesting ways if he ever brought it up again. “Who knew Danny had it in him, eh?” 

\--- --- --- --- --- --- 

_Three weeks prior._

“Don’t even think about it, Steven!” Not bothering to turn around, Danny continued to beat the eggs, bowl held close to his chest. His hips, clad in baggy white boxers, swayed a little with every whisk. 

Steve, frozen mid-pounce, deflated. “But _Danny_ ,” he whined, elongating the _a_ to ridiculous proportions.

Danny held up the egg-beater reprovingly, looking back over his shoulder to raise an eyebrow in challenge. “I have a twelve year old, babe, that voice does not work on me.”

Conceding defeat, Steve slouched forward, all efforts to sneak up on Danny abandoned. He worked greedy fingers into the rumpled crease between Danny’s boxers and shirt. (Steve’s, actually, a deep blue SEAL T that was a size too big, even for him. Their unspoken habit of sleeping in each other’s shirts brought Steve more happiness than he cared to admit).

Smoothing his palms over Danny’s stomach, fingers spread wide and scratching gently into blonde belly-hair, Steve scooted closer to press flush against Danny’s back. He dropped his chin to Danny’s shoulder, nuzzling his way up to that comforting warm spot just beneath the shell of a pale ear. 

With a hum of contentment, he breathed in a variety of familiar scents: sleep, sex, salty sea air and the beginnings of breakfast. Taking his fill, he nestled his chin back to the slope of Danny’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you expected.” His words were punctuated by soft kisses to creamy skin, the gentle flick of his tongue to a lingering love-bite.

Rough blonde stubble rasped against his own darker growth, as Danny tilted his head back a little. “I expected, Steven,” he began, with an emphatic poke of the egg beater, “for you to behave with even a modicum of maturity. I know better now, that was a pipe dream, that was folly. You can’t even dress yourself like an adult.”

Steve grinned, wiggling his stocking feet and rubbing the rest of his naked body against Danny’s semi-clothed one. “My toes were cold.”

Danny shook with gentle laughter, trying and failing to carry on with whisking the eggs. “It’s approximately 473 degrees, babe.”

Steve sniffed. “Maybe for _you_ , but my island blood says differently.” He could just make out the curve of Danny’s raised eyebrow.

“Right,” Danny said with disbelief, stretching the word into an impressive number of syllables. “So you decide to put socks on, but you’re happy to wander around the house with your bits exposed to the world.”

“ _Bits_ , Danny? Seriously?” Steve snorted. “And you say _I’m_ the kid? And anyway, yes, as I was saying. I _don’t_ know what you expected. I can’t believe you held out on me for so long. You casually tell me, _‘oh, by the way, I’ve been studying Krav Maga for twenty years’_ , you can be damned sure I’m going to sneak up on you at every opportunity.”

This time, Danny’s raised eyebrow was accompanied by his setting the bowl down, turning around in the circle of Steve’s arms. “And yet I heard you coming a mile away.”

Steve tried to manually unfurrow his brow, but it was creasing of its own accord whether he liked it or not. “Well… I need to oil that door.”

Shifting out of Steve’s embrace, Danny began to season the eggs, pouring the bowl into the pan and fiddling with the heat. “What you _need_ , is to work on your footing. Even the fishes heard you coming.”

This was, of course, not even remotely true, and they both knew it. But Steve’s interest in Danny’s skills was only increasing with every minute. At first he’d been torn between anger at the secrecy and fiery arousal at the reveal. He’d never considered Danny even remotely harmless – he’d seen the man assemble a rifle with a speed and efficiency that would put even the most seasoned of SEALs to shame. 

But there was no denying that the truly physical stuff usually fell to himself, or to Kono – Danny instead often choosing to cover the situation with his gun and a despairing expression at the state of the world. 

So that not too long ago morning, when Danny had turned to him and started to talk about wintery Jersey nights at the gym as an energetic teenager, full of more opinions than his stature could contain… well, it had been a revelatory moment for Steve. 

He was pulled from his thoughts by a soft kiss being pressed to his collarbone. He blinked back to the present just as Danny inched past him, making for the fridge. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he stepped forward, slowly scrambling the eggs as they began to solidify in the pan. 

“You’ve got to give me something here, Danno. You flat-out refused to spar with me, how else am I supposed to see what you’re made of?” He prodded the beater at the eggs with more muscle than was needed, frowning deeply.

Snapping the fridge shut, Danny tutted. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. I’m moderately fond of you, in the sense that you drive me batty. Ergo, I don’t have any particular desire to smack you in the windpipe. I’d think you’d be happy?”

Steve glowered, lowering the heat and scraping moist egg off the sides of the pan. “I know that you regret having fallen for a… what were your words again? _Military block-head._ ” He crooked his fingers beside his ears, imitating Danny’s tone. “But believe it or not, Danno, I am invested in you staying alive. And I find Krav Maga interesting.”

With deliberate gentleness, Danny placed the milk carton on the kitchen island. “Okay, first of all, I do not regret having fallen for you, and you know it, so stop that right now.” It was true. Their relationship was equal parts craziness and annoyance, but it was _their_ craziness, _their_ annoyance, and they were both bullishly protective of it. “And second of all,” Danny continued with a deep breath, before suddenly deflating. “Fine. Okay, fine. You and me, this afternoon, let’s go. Bring it, soldier boy.”

Elated, Steve didn’t even have it in him to bitch about the fact that he was a _sailor_ , thank you very much.

\--- --- --- --- --- --- --- 

_Present._

Steve watched the dogs, each taking their turn to sniff the dead body for lingering scents of Danny’s captors. One officer was emptying bottles of water over their shaggy brown heads, another setting up make-shift bowls for them to lap at eagerly.

The heat beneath the canopy was growing stifling, and Steve could feel sweat trickling down his back in uneasy rivulets. Only Kono, through some unknown form of witchcraft, appeared unruffled. Her hair was piled up high in a bun, her one concession to the heat. 

Steve knew, really, that taking a break was an essential step. Sometimes going slow meant getting there faster, and if the dogs, (not the mention the officers), ran out of puff, they’d never find Danny.

That didn’t mean that he was happy about it. Only Cath’s quiet voice in his ear, telling him to take a deep breath, was stopping him from snapping at everybody. He wanted to haul the officers up one by one and shake them, push them forward, bite at their heels. A part of him longed for his SEAL team. He knew that it was bitterly unfair of him, considering the fact that HPD had been giving him their every last spare piece of energy. Help had come from surprising and far-reaching corners within the force - Danny’s old colleagues might not have liked him all those years ago, but time healed all wounds.

Chin and Kono were tireless, as always, and Steve found himself once again regretting the military’s gender restrictions. 5-0 needed her too much, at any rate. 

Just as he was about to offer her a bottle of water, she stood up gracefully, stretching her legs and rolling her shoulders. “Come on, guys,” she announced authoritatively to the group at large. She reached down to haul a portly bloke up from his log-perch. “We need to get moving. Come on, up, let’s go!”

The dogs, rested and watered and having inspected the body, began to move forward once more. 

The hunt resumed.

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

_One week prior._

Wrenching the handbrake up before the car had even come to a complete stop, Steve flung himself from the Silverado, boots pounding the asphalt. Up ahead, he could see Gracie, dry eyes wide with shock and fear. She was curled into a tiny ball in the back seat of the Camaro, hands clasped tightly over her ears and knees drawn up to her chin. 

Danny’s car was parked awkwardly across two freeway lanes, obviously having swerved to a sudden and inelegant stop. The driver’s door was flung wide open, glass from the left window and headlight scattered all over the ground.

Two officers, young women, had their hands outstretched, tying to coax Grace from the car. Their words were soothing and soft, but every time they inched forward Grace flinched even further back, until she was almost pressed against the far side of the car.

Steve would remember her expression when she saw him for the rest of his life. Her little face crumpled, shock dissolving into distress as she clambered between the front seats, fumbling her way out of the car and falling half onto the road and half into his arms. 

She was normally surprisingly stoic, as cheeky as her father but much quieter and more easy-going – even that terrible time when she’d been kidnapped, tied up and left in a pitch black storage locker, she’d only cried soft tears through dusty cheeks. Now, though, he could feel every hiccup and tremor running through her slight frame. 

Holding her tight, he stood up with her in his arms, tucking her into the angles of his body and scattering quick kisses to her cheek.

She was really too tall to be held these days, all thin coltish legs that she was still trying to grow into, but he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. He was just shifting her around in his arms, trying to settle her on his hip to carry her to his car, when suddenly Kono and Chin raced forward. 

As soon as they drew close, Grace’s arm snapped out, fingers snagging a handful of Chin’s shirt and tugging him closer.

“Hey, Keiki,” he whispered, eyes crinkling softly as he reached up to cover her small hand with his larger one. “We’ve got you now, little love, it’ll be alright.”

She sniffled, lifting her head from Steve’s shoulder, seeming to take comfort in Chin’s words and Kono’s warm fingers at her back. 

It wasn’t until Steve had bundled her into Kono’s car, checking her seat-belt more times than was sane and insisting that Chin sit in the back with her, that what he already knew truly hit him. 

Danny was gone.

\--- --- --- --- --- --- --- 

_Present._

“The dogs have something!” Duke announced, the enthusiasm in his tone still audible alongside the rhythmic barking of the lead dog. He scurried forward, fit as a fiddle despite his age – he was one of those rare men who seemed to take strength from the island; Steve could swear that the hotter it got, the more gnarly the jungle grew, the better Duke fared.

Following the lead dog as she powered forward, eager but too well-trained to strain against her harness, Steve spotted a splattering of blood. At first it was only small, a trickle here and there within the grass. As they followed the trail, the pools began to grow in size, large smudges of red that were quickly coagulating in the humid heat. Steve stopped to inspect a bloodied handprint that was smeared against a large fern, trying to determine how fresh it was. Further ahead, Chin and Kono studied the outline of tacky fingertips pressed to the rough bark of a tree-trunk: obviously the print’s owner was trying to carry on despite his injuries. 

An energy was beginning to build in the officers, a low murmuring that spoke of impending action. It was as if everybody sensed that they were getting closer, their eyes wide and their pace accelerating as they all followed the trail of blood.

Steve stumbled upon the second body so suddenly that he almost tripped over it, half pressed as it was into a thick layer of mud. A mass of blood at the left knee spoke of a shot and shredded joint, but it was the way the man was squashed face-down into the grime that spoke of his death. 

Steve saw more than a few eyebrows raise, as one by one the officers realized that somebody – most likely Danny – had suffocated the man: Joseph Hollows, Marine Recon. Dozens of footprints were pressed into the sticky earth, clearly indicating a struggle of massive proportions. 

Steve was just trying to calculate the age of the prints, crouched down to inspect them closely, when suddenly Cath’s voice crackled into his ear-piece.

Her tone was urgent and excited. “Steve, infrared’s picked something up! Half a click to the north! I’ve got four… no, five targets, one is static, four are moving.” 

Barely a second later, the dogs all began to bark, pawing at the ground and turning their collective attention to the left, to the north. Their handlers hurried to give them more room on their leads, letting them pull ahead as they broke into a determined trot.

The crack of one gun-shot, then another, pierced the air. The jungle came to life between one breath and the next; critters scurried, bending the grass as they retreated swiftly to their dens. The canopy above shook, hundreds of birds shrieking and shooting up into the sky, casting a shadow over the officers as they fled.

As if in sync, everybody withdrew their weapons, pelting north towards the shots. The security dogs were quickly unleashed, dashing forward between their hander’s legs and disappearing into the jungle with a vengeance.

Steve’s peripheral vision assessed the officers, watching as they fanned out and formed a tightly lined net. He could feel Chin and Kono on either side of him, keeping excellent pace as they slithered speedily through the vines. His breath burned in his lungs, the humidity and sheer worry making it difficult to regulate his breathing. A pool of light lay ahead, growing larger as they moved closer to it. It was obviously a clearing of some sort, nestled within the heart of the trees and open to the sun.

A few feet from the tree-line, he skidded to a halt, not yet ready to break cover without assessing the situation first. Duke brought his officers to a stop, signaling for them to form a tight ring around the clearing, boxing in their targets. 

Steve could hear Danny shouting. It took every memory of every second of his training to stop himself from running out into the open and just _demolishing_ whatever stood in his way, whatever separated him from Danny’s voice. With three deep breaths, he shifted into the shadows, taking in the scene.

One man lay spread-eagled on the ground, neck bent at an awkward angle and eyes staring unseeing into the distance. The attack dogs had another two men on the ground, jaws buried deep into elbows and knees, dragging the targets along the ground and away from Danny’s scent - the scent they had been instructed to protect.

Danny. Steve’s heart thundered in his chest, watching as Danny swung himself free of his attacker’s grip with a startling degree of grace. He kicked viciously at the man’s knee, bending it backwards with an unnatural snap. As the man crumpled down, Danny kicked out again, his heel thudding violently against his attacker’s sternum, sending him flying backwards.

Within the space of a second, Steve and Duke signaled for everybody to emerge from the tree-line. As one, they followed their guns into the sunlight, closing in on the struggling men.

An array of angry voices rent the air, informing the remaining target that he was surrounded, ordering him to drop to the ground. The man – James Argent, Scout sniper - was pressed to Danny’s side, gun in his hand. He and Danny were grappling, writhing left and right and stopping Steve from acquiring a clean line of fire. James wrested his arm free, pressing the muzzle of the gun to Danny’s belly and working his finger to the trigger.

\--- --- --- --- --- --- 

_Two days prior._

Storming into his office, Steve slammed the door and threw his keys at his desk so angrily that they skidded along the wood, shooting off the edge and onto the floor with a clatter.

Seconds later, Chin’s face appeared behind the glass. His eyebrow was raised, half understanding and half unimpressed. “Keep it down, bra, Grace is here. She’s sleeping.”

Steve felt his blood boil even further. “What the hell is she doing here?” he hissed. “She shouldn’t be here, I don’t want her around all of this.”

Chin’s eyebrow rose higher. “Rachel called, said Grace was having trouble sleeping, she wanted to be closer to you.”

Defeated, Steve sunk back into his chair, letting it roll a little as he went limp. He looked up into Chin’s eyes, trying and failing to keep a handle on everything. “Where is she?”

Chin nodded solemnly over at Danny’s office. “With Cath and Kono.”

Scrubbing a hand roughly over his face and then into his hair, Steve stood. With a deep breath, he cobbled together his last remaining nuggets of energy, making his way slowly to Danny’s office.

Kono and Gracie were curled up back to chest on the couch, fast asleep. Kono had an arm flung protectively over Gracie’s hip. In front of them, sprawled on a nest of blankets on the floor, sat Cath. She had her head tipped back awkwardly onto the seat cushion, her hand tucked loosely around Grace’s even as she slept.

Quietly, trying not to wake them, Steve reached forward, touching gentle fingers to Kono’s temple, then Cath’s, then lastly Grace’s. All three of them were completely out to the world, exhausted. He was just staring down at them, drinking in the sight of them, when a flash of green caught his eye. 

He looked up to find Max moving around the tech table, despondently flicking through images of Danny’s abandoned car. Beyond him, Kamekona was packing up half-eaten containers of food, taking some to the little office fridge and consigning others to the rubbish bin. 

Leaving the girls to sleep, Steve retreated to the common area, nodding at Max in greeting. “Anything new?”

Max’s face turned dark, his jaw set with an iron determination. “Nothing we didn’t already know. Gloves and masks mean no prints and no faces. Witnesses report a quick extraction, no plates on the suspect’s vehicles.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He couldn’t bear to think about the witness statements one more time. _And then… then, the men in the masks, they pointed their guns at the little girl, oh god oh god, it all happened so quickly, I don’t know, I’m sorry! One of the men, he told her that he’d kill her if her daddy didn’t go with him, that she should just shut up and stay still. I don’t know, I’m sorry, I don’t know. The dad, he just told his daughter to stay calm, to not move, that everything would be okay. “Stay with Steve”, he kept saying. “Stay with Steve, no matter what. Stay with Steve.”_

Steve was rescued from his thoughts by Max’s apologies. 

“I have nothing, Commander,” Max announced, glumly. “I fear I work best with bodies. Mr. Fong is still inspecting cameras within the area, in the hopes of picking up on the van’s trail. But I… I just don’t have anything.”

Steve nodded. He wanted to reassure Max, tell him not to apologise, that it wasn’t his fault. But he was just too tired.

\--- --- --- --- ---

_Present._

Steve’s entire body quivered, telling him to take the shot. Everybody was waiting for him to give the go-ahead, he could feel their anticipation for his order – but Danny and James were locked so tightly together, wrestling violently all over the place.

There was something else that stayed Steve’s finger, something to the glint in Danny’s eye that told Steve to wait, to give his partner just one more second. With Steve’s next breath, it happened. 

Danny grabbed the wrist holding the gun to his belly, snapping it with an audible crack and violently pushing James backwards with an elbow smashed into his jaw. As soon as space opened up between them, a volley of shots rang out, peppering James with bullets and bringing him to the dirt within seconds. 

Officers swept forward, guns trained on the men being restrained by the dogs, ordering them to hold still.

Steve could barely bring himself to spare them a second thought, his gaze trained on Danny as if he’d never seen him before in his life. He rushed towards him, sliding his gun back into its holster and reaching out with both hands, steadying Danny as he sank to his knees. “Woah, woah. Hey. Hey.”

Danny closed his eyes, slumping forward to press his cheek to Steve’s thigh. He hummed happily when Steve, stood before him, reached down and slid his fingertips into Danny’s dirty hair. “Can we please get back to civilization already? This fucking jungle is driving me up the wall.” His words were mumbled against the material of Steve’s cargo pants, exhausted and bloodied.

They were the most beautiful sounds Steve had ever heard. 

\--- --- --- --- --- 

Sprawled inelegantly in the sand, Steve looked up at the stars. He could hear the happy chattering of his family and friends from further up the beach, knives and forks clinking against crockery and Longboards being unsnapped. Charlie was just beginning to fuss, all three years of him exhausted by the hour. Steve flicked his gaze up to the group, camped out on the lower lanai. He watched as Rachel and Stan bid everybody goodnight, Stan tucking Charlie to his hip.

Rachel swooped down, pressing a kiss to Grace’s cheek – Grace, still having difficulty being separated from her father, was staying with them until she settled down.

He offered a lazy salute when Stan waved at him, before returning his gaze to the stars. He was just mapping out constellations, enjoying the crisp salty air, when a face swarmed into view. Danny looked down at him, an eyebrow hitched up in amusement. “Being anti-social, I see. That and a bulldozer would knock me over.”

Steve buried his toes into the sand, wiggling them happily at the sight of his partner. “Hey you.”

Danny’s returning grin could have powered a city. “Hey you.” With little finesse, he plonked down beside Steve, rolling onto his back and lifting his gaze to the night sky. “What’re we watching?”

Steve shifted closer to him, rolling over and hitching himself up on an elbow. With a soft smile, he pressed himself against Danny’s side, nosing at the blue of his shirt as it stretched over Danny’s shoulders. (Kono had only rolled her eyes twice when Danny had walked down the stairs earlier, SEAL logos emblazoned across his back. If she’d also muttered something along the lines of, _men, you’ve got to be kidding me,_ well, that was neither here nor there).

Returning his thoughts to Danny, Steve breathed in those same familiar scents; sleep, sex, salty sea air. There was also a lingering trace of Betadine, Gracie having lectured them to tears about the risk of infection. Steve tried his best to ignore it.

If not for the fact that everybody he knew and loved was thirty feet away, he would probably have been half-way through divesting Danny of his clothes by now. As it was, he settled for a few warm kisses, leaning into Danny’s hand when his partner smudged blunt fingertips against his nape. 

A chorus of wolf-whistles from the lanai, accompanied by Grace’s long-suffering: “ _guyyyyyyyyys,_ ” had him pulling back. Not even remotely bashful, he waggled his eyebrows up at them, enjoying the way Grace had flung a hand over her eyes in protest, even as a little grin curved her lips.

Eventually, he pulled back and settled onto the sand again, lifting an arm to point to a particular star. To the soft whirr of the ocean, he began to weave an old local tale, pausing every now and then to indulge Danny’s scoffs of disbelief. Just as he was getting to the good part, Chin’s eyebrows waggled into view. 

“No, brah,” Chin scolded, folding himself down to the ground on Steve’s other side. “You’re telling it all wrong.” 

Kono’s laughter grew closer, and within seconds she was kneeling beside Danny. “Don’t listen to him, Boss, he’s a stickler for the facts. These things need dramatic flair, cuz.”

Within seconds, the three of them had descended into a squabble about how best to tell the story. Steve made his case, declaring them all fools, but half of his attention was focused on the chatter from the lanai. Kamekona was obviously doing his best to flirt with Cath and Malia, if their peals of raucous laughter were anything to go by. Max was talking at length about the dietary benefits of tofu, Kamekona pausing in his compliments every so often to declare Max a culinary lost cause.

The next thing Steve knew, little feet were trampling on his, their owner squeezing between him and Danny and wriggling onto her back. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Grace whispered, even as she accidentally elbowed him in the belly. Eventually, she came to a rest, half on top of Danny and half on top of him, looking up at the night sky with interest. “Okay, okay, tell me the story, start from the start.”

To the sounds of his family surrounding him, Steve began the tale afresh.

**Author's Note:**

> [Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny series.](http://archiveofourown.org/series/25063)
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> Warm thanks to Christine, who cast her eye over this when I wasn't too fond of it.
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> Yes, I kept Malia alive. My regrets, let me show you them:


End file.
